Improving The Quality of Elementary Education - in developing countries and India (especially post-RTE); equal learning opportunities for the poor and marginalized; insights gained from processes in India and South Asia. All this adds up to CHANGE - and the material here is meant for those sharing the adventure...

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Myth # 5 – Teachers can improve by following
instructions given to them by their seniors

This is an extension of the previous myth,
except it operates between officials/supervisors and teachers. The notion is that the teacher
is merely a cog in the wheel, lower down in the hierarchy, and the best way to
get him to improve is to make him comply with instructions from above. Apart from the fact that the instructions from
above often tend to be problematic, it is also true that many of them don’t get
implemented at all. At best, teachers can be made to comply with rules such as
coming on time, or turning in a certain amount of work – but they can’t be made
to like children, or smile at them, or feel like coming to work every day and
radiating this enthusiasm to students and colleagues. That is only possible if
the system seeks a partnership with
teachers, treats them as fellow stakeholders and engages with them on a more equal footing.

As the experience of RTE shows,
instructions, rules and even laws that make lack of compliance justiciable –
are insufficient to bring about the required change. They are simply the wrong
instrument for the purpose. (I’ve written about coercive and generative power
elsewhere.)

About Me

Former Educational Quality Advisor to MHRD, Government of India; developed the Quality Framework for the implementation of the Right To Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India's EFA programme. Now, Principal Coordinator - Group Ignus, which comprises of IgnusERG (consulting company), Ignus-PAHAL (non-profit) and Ignus-OUTREACH (low cost educational publishing). Work on large-scale systemic change in education, advising state and national governments in Asia, developing appropriate models for vulnerable population groups, and improving the quality of governmental as well as NGO educational programmes. This involves improved curricula, textbooks, teacher training and capacity building at various levels. Also reaching out to teachers and grassroots functionaries making an effort to bring about improvement wherever they are, in whichever way they can.